Brain Implant. Good or bad?
A computer chip may restore vision and mobility.
My apologies for being a day late. I just returned from Massachusetts and am a bit behind with everything.
You’ve probably heard enough about Elon Musk. Whether you like Twitter or not, the fact that he’s just about to run it into the ground after a highly controversial acquisition has alienated many of his fans and confirmed the negative opinion of his even more numerous detractors. Personally, I’m convinced that progressive taxation should be applied to eliminate billionaires altogether – but that’s beside the point.
While I more or less ignore any news concerning Twitter, Musk’s name came up recently in relation to animal cruelty. An email sent from The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine informed me that the organization had filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Davis, which partners with Musk’s company Neuralink. They’re working on some amazing technologies: Computer chips that can be implanted in a human brain but don’t need any wires. They’re called Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI) devices. The one that Neuralink is developing, The Link, needs a robot to be inserted in the brain – the threads containing many electrodes that connect different areas of the brain are so minute that a human hand can’t insert them.
Musk and his company claim that their BCI device will be able to help paralyzed people walk again, allow those who were born blind to see, and improve the lives of paraplegics for example by allowing them to send commands to a computer directly with their brains. Impressive goals – unfortunately, the company killed 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine compiled a number of documents from researchers who worked with monkeys and revealed horrendously cruel treatment. Please use the above link to see the hand-written original records with truly heartbreaking notes.
In fact, the current federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations is conducted in part because of internal staff complaints. Employees claim that animals, especially monkeys, suffered injuries and death because Musk as the company’s CEO forced them to accelerate and rush their testing. This caused preventable mistakes which resulted in animals’ death. Of course, Neuralink’s website claims that the company is “absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible.”1
Although a brain implant sounds somewhat science fiction-like, there’s a reason why this story caught my attention. About ten years ago I helped a small German animal rescue NGO with fundraising. They were active mainly in Romania where the government used tremendously cruel methods to deal with an overpopulation of stray dogs. Instead of focusing on spay/neuter campaigns they employed dog catchers who snared the animals and dumped them in public shelters where they would attack each other and die from lack of water and food. It was a lucrative business because the government paid good money to the shelters but it landed in the pockets of corrupt officials. German NGOs would try to support small private shelters, sending them money for dog food, vet bills, and conducting spay/neuter events once or twice a year.
At that time, around 2012/13, Facebook didn’t have many animal rescuers who asked for support and donations, and one could easily get a good sense for who was genuine. One woman in particular caught my attention: A slender, tall, attractive – TRUCK DRIVER! Yes, that was Tamara’s (or Tammy’s, as all her friends called her) job and she was passionate about it. It allowed her (with the support of her boss) to fill up her 40-ton semi trailer truck with donations of cat- and dog food and many other items that a small animal shelter can use. Her first trip in 2011 took her to Croatia. In the summer of 2012 she drove to Spain where she provided desperately needed help to several small shelters.
Tammy had thousands of Facebook followers who were ready to help her at the drop of a hat. At a big transport tour to Romania early in 2013 one of the animal shelters chosen to receive dog food and other supplies experienced an emergency: their lease was canceled out of the blue and the nearly one hundred dogs who lived there were threatened with homelessness. Tammy sprang into action: she found a new location, calculated the cost for moving and the first few months of rent, and then asked her Facebook community for help. In less than twelve hours she received several thousand Euros.
People could be confident that their money would be spent wisely and honestly. Tammy had a fantastic sense for detail and planned every little aspect of her campaigns. This stood her in good stead when it came to really big undertakings: in the summer of 2013 she coordinated the remodeling of a dilapidated shelter in Campulung/Romania where over 1000 dogs lived in complete misery. She inspired about 40 German volunteers to spend their vacation in Campulung and join her in the back-breaking work of renovating the squalid shelter. A detailed plan for each day told every participant what they were expected to do. Because of Tammy’s exceptional event-organizing skills, chaos was kept at a minimum. The whole project was partially financed by Harmony Fund, a Massachusetts-based animal welfare charity that somehow heard about Tammy and wanted to do “something big” with her. And that’s exactly what happened, something big.
I never met Tammy in person, but spent much time on the phone and emailing with her. I helped her with translations, networking, exchange of ideas and became one of her closest collaborators. After Campulung she had already planned the next project, but then something horrible happened: she fell when she got off her truck and cracked her skull. She suffered serious brain damage and was in an induced coma for several months. When she awoke, she couldn’t talk and she was paralyzed. The doctors didn’t give her much chance for any recovery but she proved them wrong. She learned to speak again, she was able to sit up again and even stand with assistance, and she regained her memory – which made her painfully aware of everything she had lost and could never retrieve. When she died about four and a half years after the accident I’m sure it was a relief and a blessing.
Soon after it happened I had done some research with the hope of finding some scientific innovations which could improve the condition of a seriously damaged brain. I found that the military was interested because a number of troops returned from active duty suffering from severe brain injuries. All I discovered though was that scientists had some ideas that they were experimenting with. A device like the one that Neuralink is developing may have helped my friend Tammy? I sure hope that in the future even seriously damaged brains can be healed.
However, I’m certain that Tammy would not have approved of any animal suffering that a potential cure had caused. Her whole life was dedicated to bettering the lives of animals; the cruel treatment the monkeys received at the UC Davis labs would have shocked her.
Instead, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine suggests the use of non-invasive BMIs: they don’t require animal experiments and research has already achieved good results.2
Please watch a video in memory of Tammy, created by Christian Giglia:
Let me know if you’d like to get a translation of the German text; I will leave it in a comment.
Thank you for a really thought-provoking piece -- I gather, from links in the post, that there are many promising alternatives to invasive brain-computer interfaces. Lovely to learn about Tammy. By the way, I live in Massachusetts. Kept an eye out for you but never spotted you. ;-)
Animal rescue can elevate humanity to a better place. I believe that with my whole being, after working with Jemez Valley Animal Amigos a few years ago. Holiday Greetings sent to Coyote!